WEST BOYLSTON -- West Boylston's Goodale Street School was built at a time when seven of the town's eight other schools were being demolished, removed — and submerged by the newly built Wachusett Reservoir.

With that construction came the destruction of much of the residents' livelihood from the mills on the previously prosperous waterways.

Population declined from nearly 3,000 in 1895 to half that in 1908 after the building of the reservoir from 1896 to 1905.

But you can't keep a hardy New England town down: West Boylston's townspeople soldiered on, and the town eventually recovered its population and surpassed it. More school building projects would become necessary, and several schools were built to replace the aging Goodale School, which was vacant and up for sale in 1982.

It would eventually make way to serve another need of the town's growing population of youth: recreation fields.

West Boylston was home for many years to Farmer's Almanac editor Robert Thomas.

-- Melissa McKeon

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